The Crystal Maze was a British game show, produced by Chatsworth Television and shown on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom between 15 February 1990 and 10 August 1995. There was one series per year, with the first four series presented by Richard O’Brien and the final two by Ed Tudor-Pole. Each show was one hour long, including adverts.
The show was originally intended to be a British remake of the French programme Fort Boyard, devised by Jacques Antoine. However, the unavailability of the French show’s set led British producer Malcolm Heyworth to reinvent the show, using themed zones as a means to keep the show visually fresh.
The series is set in “The Crystal Maze”, which features four different “zones” set in various periods of time and space. A team of six contestants take part in a series of challenges in order to win “time crystals”. Each crystal gives the team five seconds of time inside “The Crystal Dome”, the centrepiece of the maze where the contestants take part in their final challenge.
The maze cost £250,000 to build and was the size of two football pitches. At its height the show was the most watched on Channel 4, regularly attracting between 4 and 6 million viewers. In 2006 and again in 2010, the show was voted “greatest UK game show of all time” by readers of UKGameshows.com. This site describes the programme as “a highly-ambitious, high-risk show that paid off handsomely.”
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Nick Groff, a paranormal investigator who’s “on a mission to discover something new in the paranormal field”, and paranormal researcher Katrina Weidman who will both spend 72 hours together locked down in the most haunted locations. They will be staying with the dead at these reportedly haunted places, many of which have never been filmed for a production. And some, they will be investigated for the first time on television. Groff and Weidman believe, that “the longer they stay, the more the spirits will communicate with them and the more information they can gather about the unknown”.
The Real World is a reality television program on MTV originally produced by Mary-Ellis Bunim and Jonathan Murray. First broadcast in 1992, the show, which was inspired by the 1973 PBS documentary series An American Family, is the longest-running program in MTV history and one of the longest-running reality series in history, credited with launching the modern reality TV genre.
The series was hailed in its early years for depicting issues of contemporary young-adulthood relevant to its core audience, such as sex, prejudice, religion, abortion, illness, sexuality, AIDS, death, politics and substance abuse, but later garnered a reputation as a showcase for immature and irresponsible behavior.
Following Bunim’s death from breast cancer in 2004, Bunim/Murray Productions continues to produce the program. The 28th and most recent season, set in Portland, Oregon, premiered on March 27, 2013, and ended its first run on June 12, 2013. An upcoming 29th season, set in San Francisco, California, is currently in production, and is expected to air in 2014.
The series has generated two notable spin-offs, both broadcast by MTV: Road Rules, which lasted for 14 seasons, and the reality game show The Challenge, which has run for over 20 seasons since 1998. The Challenge is mostly cast-contestant dependent on both The Real World and Road Rules, as it combines contestants from various seasons of both shows. Coordinating the series with its spin-off, MTV alternates between airing seasons of The Real World and The Challenge and ends out seasons of both shows by showing previews for the upcoming season of the other.
Shipping Wars is a reality TV series on A&E that began airing on January 10, 2012. The show follows six independent carriers who have discovered that fortunes can be made transporting items that traditional carriers either cannot or will not haul. The series also features uShip, the world’s largest online auction house for independent truckers. For Season 1, the featured carriers are Marc Springer, Roy Garber, Jennifer Brennan, Jarrett Joyce, and Suzanne and Scott Bawcom. Starting with Season 2, the Bawcoms are replaced by the team of Christopher Hanna and Robbie Welsh. Season 3 premiered on December 12, 2012 . New shippers Johnny Chavez and the team of Chelsea Grant and Courtney Aguilera appear in Season 4.
In a typical episode, the carriers place bids on two jobs listed on uShip, in a reverse auction format. Each client has the option of awarding the job either to the lowest bidder, or to a higher bidder based on feedback from previous clients. Ties are broken in favor of the carrier with the higher average feedback rating. Winners load their cargo and attempt to deliver it intact by the client’s deadline. Feedback ratings from clients are displayed as the loads are delivered. At the end of the episode, each carrier’s net profit or loss is tallied on-screen, with the expenses subtracted from the bid amount to determine the overall profit or loss. At times, a carrier will arrange to haul one or more additional loads on the same trip, with the extra money figured into his/her tally.
Viewers go deep into an Alaskan winter to meet six tough and resilient residents as they try to stay one step ahead of storms and man-eating beasts to make it through to spring. The closest neighbor to Sue Aikens is more than 300 miles away. Eric Salitan subsists solely on what he hunts and forages. Chip and Agnes Hailstone catch fish for currency in bartering for supplies, and Andy and Kate Bassich use their pack of sled dogs for transportation.
Reality show following the auditioning process and making of the annual Dallas Cowboys Cheerleading Squad.
You saw him on Ghost Adventures, now, Dakota Laden takes his sister and best friend on a cross-country road trip to visit the most haunted locations in America.
A single bachelorette dates multiple men over several weeks, narrowing them down to hopefully find her true love.
Working with leading relationship experts, eight British singles are carefully match-made into four married couples, who each meet each other – for the very first time – at their wedding. We’ll follow them as they marry, honeymoon, meet the in-laws and set up home, all the while getting to know one another more and more deeply, to see if the matchmakers have got it right and they will have a future together.
The cast of Jersey Shore swore they would always do a vacation together. Now, five years, five kids, three marriages, and who knows how many GTL sessions later, the gang is back together and on vacation in a swanky house in Miami Beach.
A singing competition where celebrities compete with each other but with one particularity: their identity is hidden by full masks. The British adaptation of the worldwide hit.
